Fall Creek

As though shedding an old skin, Fall Creek slips free from fall's weight, clots of leaves blackening snags, back of pool where years ago local lore claims clothes were shed by a man and woman wed less than a month, who let hoe and plow handle slip from hands, left rows half done, crossed dark waves of bottomland to lie on a bed of ferns, make a child, and all the while the woman stretching both arms behind her over the bank, hands swaying wrist-deep in current — perhaps some old wives' tale, water’s pulse pulsing what seed might be sown, or just her need to let go the world awhile, let the creek wash away every burden her life had carried so far, open a room for this new becoming as her body flowed around her man like water.

Published in Raising the Dead (2003). Text may vary slightly from the video reading.